So much for rest.

  The sun had set hours ago. Sleep’s allure tempted Hazel as she focused on the encompassing darkness.

  It has to be close to midnight.

  She lounged as comfortably as she could manage outside Snow’s office. Her nerves, however, wouldn’t let her find any peace. Not while Bellona was on the other side, most likely being grilled about Hazel roping her into extracurricular activities.

  Leo and Sable were settled on the benches across from her in the blue-drenched compartment. She eyed the familiar-looking roses around the room. They were comprised of tightly layered petals that were velvety, caught somewhere between midnight blue and indigo. Their outermost edges were lighter, like the sky at twilight, while the inner parts were the darkest, bordering on black. The very same kind that was left, along with the tape.

  There were what looked to be hundreds of them.

  How subtle.

  Sable swayed slightly even while sitting. Undoubtedly, the aftereffects of the drinks with Festus.

  Leo appeared utterly sober yet lost deep within his thoughts. His focus was distant, and he hadn’t met her eyes since he had collected all of them and brought them here. Even Sable sent him a worried glance intermittently.

  If she weren’t so terrified, she would have laughed at how much the three of them resembled school kids preparing to be reprimanded by the principal.

  When the silence started irritating her skin, she finally cleared her throat. “So...uh…either of you ever been to Six? You know, since we’re skipping it?”

  Sable nodded while Leo didn’t even acknowledge that she had spoken.

  “Sure have.” Sable sucked in a theatric breath, “Largest district by far. Cold as Satan’s balls this time of year. But after Ten? It’s a damn resort. I’ll take gasoline and engine grease over cow shit any day.”

  Hazel bit back a small laugh at Sable’s candidness, “Didn’t take you for a gas huffer old man.”

  One of the two barely visible Avoxes chuckled. Leo looked up, inspected them, grimaced, and let his stare fall away again.

  Sable scowled in her direction. “If it gets me through this assignment and babysitting a particularly aggravating Victor, I’m willing to try anything.”

  Before she could volley back, Snow’s office doors swung open. Bellona slinked out like a scolded puppy.

  Hazel rose to her feet as Sable and Leo merely watched her trade places with the guard.

  “Your turn, Marlowe,” Bellona said, ushering Hazel toward the office.

  “You all right?” Hazel whispered, but Bellona kept her eyes lowered and lips sealed as she shut the doors behind her.

  And just like that, she was alone with Snow.

  The man was all but basking in his leather chair, glass twirling between his fingers. A golden-hued fluid swirled within the quartz cup.

  Before him on the desk was the player. Its mouth agape. The tapeless interior having been thoroughly inspected. “Tell me, where might have you found this?”

  “I told you.” Hazel crossed her arms, trying to appear confident, though the move was more to give her hands something to do.

  “I thought we were going to be honest with each other.” Snow inspected the alcohol, the last word came out slightly muffled, and she wondered how many he had downed before she arrived.

  “You were the one who argued that omission and lying were different.”

  He let out a breath from his nose, “So I did. But this is slightly more than a simple omission.”

  “I didn’t realize our game extended to my hobbies.” Her fingers tugged at the hems of her shirt sleeves.

  “Antiquing was it?”

  “You should really give it a try. Take a break from world domination.”

  A snort escaped his lips. “And here I thought we were finally getting somewhere, you and I. So much for being on the same team. “

  “I’m all for teamwork, Coriolanus.”

  His blue eyes flitted to hers at his name. Reaching forward, he pet the player, “This would suggest otherwise.”

  “Then show me what’s on it and we’ll be on the same page.”

  Snow paused the swirling of his beverage. “Ok.”

  Hazel stilled, analyzing him. “Really?”

  In turn, he quietly regarded her. Inclining back even further in the chair, it let out a leathery squeak. Extending his gloved fingers, he brushed the tips against his lips. A hint of a smirk materialized beneath.

  Hazel resisted an eye roll, “I knew it couldn’t be that easy.”

  A full-blown grin bloomed at her statement. Raising the lavender glass to his lips, he took a longish swig.

  “What are the conditions?” she asked, her toe pattering against the flooring.

  “I want to trust you, and I need you to trust me.” He finished the remnants of his beverage, “After you do your part in Eight. I will uphold mine. We’ll have that dinner and movie I promised you. “

  Fiery anger rushed through her like sparks flying off a saw. “How do I know even after that you won’t change the rules again?”

  “Like I said, you’ll have to trust me.” He set down the cup, bending forward. “Think of it as team building.”

  Anger surged harder through her, like a cup overflowing. It bubbled out, and she couldn’t take any more. Not today.

  Turning on her heel, she stormed toward his office door.

  “Hazel, wait.” He called behind her.

  She paused at the sound of her name on his tongue. Something about it sent a wave of unease through her. She shivered but didn’t turn around. “I think I’m going to take your advice and get some rest.”

  I’ve played enough games for one day.

  His dress shoes thumped loudly in pursuit as she restarted her march toward the exit. Just as her hand closed around the handle that was nearly the same colors as his drink, it creaked. A gloved palm pressed hard against the door above her head, ensuring it stayed latched.

  Her pulse suddenly belted against her throat as she peered up at him. A chill prickled across her skin, fingers slipping. He was all but towering over her, and a lick of fear danced down her backbone.

  “Do we still have a deal?” he murmured, his face practically seeping with a marrow-chilling seriousness.

  Hazel twisted her fingers harder over the handle. “Let me go,” she breathed.

  Defiance flamed through his irises. “Answer me and I will.”

  Hazel turned her face toward him, shoulders squared, but maintained her deathgrip on the handle, “We do.”

  “It’s good to know we understand each other.” His shoulders relaxed, but his hand remained fastened against the wood. “Speaking of omission. Exactly how much of it have you already seen?”

  Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the handle harsher.

  Damn him.

  His attention soaked in her features like she was the goldenrod liquor he had just been indulging himself on.

  Maybe he was bluffing.

  When that sweltering scrutiny leveled lower on her face, she interjected.

  “I’ve given you answers. I believe it is my turn.”

  “Right as always.” His arm fell to his side, eyes twinkling. “What is your question?”

  She ripped the door open. “Goodnight, Coriolanus.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Without another word, she stormed out of the office. Leaving a slightly flustered Senator in her wake.

  Bellona, Sable, and Leo straightened immediately, surprised expressions quickly covered as Hazel all but flew from the train car. The three followed behind her after an acknowledging nod from Snow. Though his eyes never left the fuming redhead who was running from him.

  Once she had disappeared into the night, her three guards in tow, he turned back, shutting himself in the depths of his study.

  With another golden pour and an exhausted decline into the velvet embrace of his chair, his eyes drifted shut. The liquor calmed in his glass. And he let the sweetened allure of alcohol pull him under.

  *******

  His clothes were drenched. Plastered to his body like a second skin. But it wasn’t just his outfit. Everything was …damp?

  From the drops falling into his eyes to the squish of puddles collecting in his shoes, water was everywhere.

  He moved to swipe away the wetness from his lids. But as he flexed his hands, he realized something was in his hold.

  It was heavy, bulky, yet familiar. A thick, woody stock. An ebony barrel and a matching muzzle.

  A rifle. No.

  The rifle.

  A relic from a previous life.

  It, too, was collecting the drizzle coming from all around him. That was when he took in his surroundings with more detail.

  A turquoise green forest hedged him. It was beautiful, but in a way, soul-haunting as if it cloaked secrets within its depths.

  Straightening his spine, he caught a glimpse of something in the mushy brown leaves and underbrush beneath his boots.

  A sunset-orange scarf. One that smelled of the sweetest roses. Of his mother. Bending, he retrieved it, burying his face within its folds.

  Nothing else quite invoked the few memories that remained of her like that scent. One nostrilful and he was a boy again. His mother tucking back his wild curls.

  Before everything had changed.

  Before the hunger. Before, father never returned. Before, he hated cabbage. Before Tigris stopped coming home every night. Before Gaul. Before Sejanus. Before he murdered three.

  But most importantly, before her. The covey girl who loved color more than most.

  As if reading his thoughts, a timid rainfall began to play out a gothic melody over waxen ferns. A harmony strummed over moss and bark.

  Yet a very real tune fiddled on the wind. He recognized it within only a few notes.

  Are you, are you

  Coming to the tree?

  It was the same one. Most nights, when he closed his eyes, he heard little else.

  Not again.

  His dreams dragged him here often. Fencing him within a nightmare version of a memory.

  They strung up a man.

  They say who murdered three

  The song was a never-ending déjà vu that insisted on torturing him. No matter how many times he came here. Nothing ever changed. No matter how many times he tried. And by god, he’d tried.

  When he was president, he would ban the song and every other twangy Podunk covey tune, for that matter.

  Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be

  If we met at midnight in the hanging tree

  A twig snapped in the distance. His muscles rang with sudden alertness, the sensation tearing through him like muscle memory.

  He’d felt it more during the dark days, when the bombs came down as frequently as spring rainstorms, and then again during his deployment...with Sejanus. It was the song of trauma that his body replayed without missing a beat. Always picking up where it had left off. Like no time had gone by at all.

  Are you, are you

  Coming to the tree?

  Where a dead man called out

  For his love to flee

  Raising his weapon, he scanned the creaking, saturated forest.

  Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be

  If we met at midnight in the hanging tree

  In the distance, the wind made white capped waves over the District Twelve lake’s surface.

  He held his breath. Looking down the barrel at the empty, whispering woods.

  “Damn it.” He cursed to no one. This was how this always went. It made him want to scream and empty his magazine into the canopy. Again.

  Then the sound of feet against the earth called him, as did the song that purred along the back of his neck.

  Are you, are you

  Coming to the tree?

  Where a dead man called out for his love to flee

  She couldn’t be far.

  He whirled toward it, gun first. “Lucy Gray?”

  The only answer was the dull clip of someone running.

  He sprinted toward it. The ground squished and wobbled beneath his shoes. His footing slipped more than a few times, but he refused to let it deter him.

  Are you, are you

  Coming to the tree?

  Wear a necklace of rope

  Side by side with me

  “Lucy Gray!” he hollered again. Rainwater collected along his lips and dripped into his mouth as he continued to yell her name with no response. It tasted of sky, earth, and a hint of salt.

  Damn her for running. Damn her for escaping him. Damn her for always winning this blasted game.

  Even his dreams insisted on his failure.

  He couldn’t allow that.

  This time would be different.

  Even as he thought it, his promise felt hollow. Probably because he said it to himself every night.

  Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be

  If we met at midnight in the hanging tree

  Then his heart nearly stopped when he saw a flash of movement up ahead. A flare of out-of-place color. A long, colorful coat whipped behind a running figure. Hood pulled over her head. It was a sunset deep hue, like the pulpy flesh of a blood orange. Whipping behind her, it was a dying flame, drowning in a sea of green.

  That only fueled his fire. His legs pumped, and his muscles strained against the confines of his drenched outfit. Pushing himself harder, after a few minutes, he realized he was gaining on his target.

  “Lucy Gray!” he screamed again.

  The girl's steps faltered at her name, but didn’t stop.

  It didn’t matter. He was still gaining.

  Snow always lands on top. It always lands on top. It has to land on top.

  Their collective breathing and the thumping of their footfalls over waterlogged earth and moss broke the serenity of the surroundings.

  He was upon her then, within arm’s reach.

  Of all the times he had had this dream, he had never gotten this far.

  Lowering his gun he reached forward fisting a handful of the vibrant fabric and pulled as hard as he could.

  They both tumbled backward at the drastic speed change.

  As he regained his footing, he once again raised his weapon toward Lucy Gray’s face.

  “Don’t move-“

  His heart skipped a beat, the rhythm thrown completely off tempo by the sight before him.

  Instead of warm, spiced dark honey irises, there was a pristine green. Like budding grass after a spring rain, like the lushest, most well-nourished of forests. Tangled locks of sun-kissed crimson fell over her shoulders as she cowered backwards. Trembling hands raised between them. A rose-pink gauze coated the center of one palm.

  Hazel.

  The girl studied him with that look again. She probably thought he didn’t notice, but he caught her staring more than a handful of times.

  He saw the way her leaf-colored eyes watched him for too long, not wary enough for her own good. Seemingly enticed by the perilous side of uncontained curiosity.

  Like someone drawn to the edge of a cliff that beckoned with both beauty and danger. He recognized the instinct. Knew the feeling, the temptation…profoundly…personally.

  Because he’d been that person once. And Lucy Gray had been his cliff's edge.

  Lucy Gray was the opposite of gray in every way. She was a songbird cloaked in any number of colors. A bloom bred for the spotlight, fragrant as lilacs and as sweet as honeysuckle. Yet, she was a mist you chased but slipped too easily through your fingers.

  Hazel wasn’t gray, but she wasn’t a rainbow either. She was Earth. She was the forest floor: green, gold, and brown. Like her name. Like the simple wildflowers that dotted the forest, she was rooted, stubborn, and too transparent for her own safety.

  Maybe that was the real trouble with wildflowers. They bore a sort of honest beauty cultivated from hardiness but at the same time they were stubborn. Difficult to shape. Arduous to train.

  “Coriolanus?”

  His name fell from her lips in a way that he could feel in his bones.

  Lowering his weapon, he murmured, “Hazel? What are you doing here?”

  His fingers curled tighter around the stock of the rifle. He could still hear it. That damned refrain echoing through the trees and the wreckage of what could have been.

  “So we’ll both be free…”

  “Coriolanus! Coriolanus! Coriolanus!” The grating shriek of Mockingjay’s rained down upon them. They croaked out his name in Hazel’s voice, but it was shrill, sharp, and pained. Nothing like the real thing.

  Coriolanus raised his gun toward the sky, casting a furious glance at the squawking abominations.

  “God, I hate those birds.” He smirked, lowering his gaze back to the girl.

  But she was gone. Every trace had disappeared. The jade stare. The red unkempt mane. How she said his name. The way she looked at him. All of it had vanished into the humid air.

  “Hazel!” He called, but the woods had again fallen into nearly complete silence.

  Then a voice was in his ear. Sweet, husky, and melodic. Achingly familiar.

  Are you, are you

  Coming to the tree?

  Where I told you to run

  So we'd both be free

  Lucy Gray.

  Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be

  If we met at midnight in the hanging tree

  Warm breath toyed with the shell of his ear as did the voice of his tormentor, “Let go, Coriolanus.”

  Coriolanus shot awake, tipping over what was left in his tumbler as well as the glass itself onto the floor.

  It careened and then shattered into a million glittering quartz particles.

  “Shit,” he cursed.

  Suddenly, his office doors burst open.

  Vesper’s face was full of alarm as he scanned his boss. Coriolanus was bleary, and his glass was utterly destroyed.

  “Just an accident,” Coriolanus ran a shaking hand over his face. Leaning over, he reached for one of the shards, but due to either inebriation or the aftereffects of the dream, his fingers slipped.

  A thick slice cut through the bottom of his thumb. He let out another string of muffled profanities as Vesper scooted about with a broom.

  Coriolanus pressed down on his bleeding hand as blood beaded onto the floor.

  “Worry about the mess later,” he commanded. “Get me a damn first aid kit.”

  Vesper nodded, abandoning the broom and scurrying toward the door.

  The slice curled along his thumb, just below the two little scars from the snake bite.

  It resembled a haphazard smile. Like a face jeering up at him. Mocking like those horrid birds. Like her…

  ‘Let go, Coriolanus.’

  Deja vu wasn’t about to get the better of him.

  “Vesper. Get me the engineer on the phone who’s building the fence in Twelve.” He suddenly called out while unfurling a map over his desk.

  The avox considered him with a questioning frown.

  Coriolanus muttered an answer even though he wasn’t obligated to explain himself least of all to an avox. It was already bad enough that Vesper was watching him bleed. “I want him to draw up new blueprints.”

  Vesper again nodded before making his escape.

  Let go?

  He knew what she meant…Let her go…

  A harsh laugh bubbled out of him as he smoothed down the edges of the District Seven map. A smear of crimson stained the edge.

  Only fools make the same mistake twice.